Víc než touha

by Thea Devine, Magda Cindričová (Translator)

Erotická romance z druhé poloviny 19. století. Říkali mu pirát a predátor, ale navzdory všem zkušenostem není Ryder Culhane vůbec připravený na způsob, jakým se neústupná a despotická Alexandra DeLisleová vkrádá do jeho myšlenek a zatemňuje mu mozek erotickými představami. Je to to poslední, co potřebuje, a přece to, po čem nejvíc touží; v souvislosti s jedním bláznivým obchodem dostane Ryder Alexandru do své náruče a do své postele, ale i do příliš těsné blízkosti nepřítele, který je chce oba zničit… Alexandra DeLisleová by snad i uvěřila, že Ryder – vzhledem ke svému záhadnému šestému smyslu – ztělesňuje samotného ďábla. Kdyby měl ale v rukou klíč k nalezení její unesené sestry, spolčila by se třeba s Luciferem. Udělá cokoliv, počínaje cestováním s Ryderem přes půl světa, přes vydírání až k tomu, že se vydává za jeho konkubínu a podvoluje se každému jeho intimnímu požadavku… Soukromá kupé v Orient Expressu, nejluxusnější hotely v Evropě i mystické brány Východu – všude tam tito nevěrohodní milenci podléhají prudké vášni, která je staví před zkoušku, kam až sahají hranice touhy a osudu, když čelí nebezpečí většímu a lákavějšímu než jakákoliv síla, kterou by si dokázali představit...

Genres: Romance, Historical Romance, Historical, Erotic Romance, Erotica

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Thea Devine is the author of eighteen historical romances and four novellas, including her contributions to the Brava anthologies Captivated, Fascinated, and, most recently, All Through the Night. Devine lives with her husband of 35 years in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Krystean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beyond Desire is the first book I have read by author Thea Devine. Let me start off by saying I am not a book reviewer or blogger so I will not pretend to be able to do something efficiently that I have no experience doing i.e. reviewing a book which is someone else's hard work and labour of love. My main intention for writing this review at all is to see if anyone else who may have read this book felt the way I did. I wanted to love it but I couldn't. For a description of what this book is about you can click on the cover picture to read about it. It is considered erotic romance but is also historical, adventure, mystery, etc. Oh, and Ryder Culhane, the main character/hero, just "knows" things in a loosely described ESP Irish kind of way. The difficulty I had in losing myself in the story was it tended to be too many things at once, not too many genres or storylines--too many styles of writing including speech, cadence, dialogue, whatever the technical terms are. Portions of the erotic romance scenes between the main characters are amazing and the character development of the heroine, Alexandra DeLisle, speak to me and my experiences to a degree. The portions of mysterious, thrill-seeking cross-country adventures are excellent as well and almost remind me of watching an Indiana Jones movie. There is one descriptive scene about the innoccuous act of brewing tea that I love and have marked on Goodreads as one of my favourite quotes. This should make me want to rate this book as a 4 or a 5. The whole of the book is like a badly stitched patchwork quilt. The story lines and characters flow and make sense but I can't really describe it...it's like the technical parts of putting the story together are not meshing as cohesively as they should. At one point I feel like I'm reading Dickensian prose and then I read something else that sounds like it belongs to the 1990's. It's inconsistencies like this that I am trying to put into words. Consequently, I gave it a 2 (there is no 1.5) because the confusing changes in tone, from my perspective, dulled the brilliant gems scattered throughout the rest of the story.

[D.L. Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love scene that lasts 100 pages. That's all I need to say.

[Gretchen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok... so I will NOT be recommending this guys to.... anyone... I hate to give bad reviews on books, because there are things in every story that are appealing, but when the over all isn't that great I have to lay it out...

A few things about the writing itself (again I feel bad for critisizing, but really) first - who ever editted this book should be fired... I might just be overly anal-retentive, but when "she" says something and later it says he... drives me crazy. The language used was extremely confusing in the first half of the book, once I got over the confusion I understood, but I didn't like that I had to go through more than 100 pages before I could work it out... (Maybe I'm a little dense...) Now the story itself... The overall plot became very interesting through the middle which I was very happy about, as I said before the first half was just very confuseing... the POV changes without warning and it is very hard to follow. Again it got better as the book progressed, but getting there was a problem! The love scense where hot, but discribing the male member more than 3-4 time in the span of 2 pages if over kill! I GET IT... his is blessed in the front... ENOUGH already! Over kill is an understatement to the repeditive verbage in this book. Someone should have given the author a thesaurus because I'm sure that there are other ways to say voluptuous and nakeness... very annoying after the 100th time.

OK, now that I got most of the negatives out of the way... a few positives for the book. The story it's self was actual really interesting. I like the premise, and the multiple twist at the very end where suprising. The sex slave part of the story was a suprise and I really didn't see it comeing... it made sense in a way, and the built up to it with the main characters play helped understand better what was happening when the main female was emerges into that enviroment.

Overall... Meh. and that's all I have to say.

[C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that was amazing. I'm having the hardest time assigning "stars" to it. It's written in the purplest of prose, by the end I hated the hero, the sister the heroine spends the entire book trying to rescue ends up DEAD, and the version of archeology presented is so nonsensical I have to go read some Barbara Michaels now, as a palate cleanser.

On the other hand the sex scenes are AMAZING, and the issues surrounding sex and power are infuriating but fascinating. It's like a trainwreck where all the boxcars contain appalling beliefs about women's sexuality: she'll be addicted to sex! Sex renders her powerless! It would take ten men to satisfy her! If she flirts with men other than the hero, she's putting herself in danger of rape!

Also, Bad Guy Who Kidnaps Her Sister seems to be bad chiefly because he 1) has a harem and 2) prefers anal sex (once with--the horror!!!--another man). I mean, he's also the head of an ancient religion devoted to the worship of evil. But the only form that takes is training the sister for anal sex, maintaining a harem for anal sex, and kidnapping the heroine and threatening her with--wait for it--anal sex. Whereas the HERO makes the heroine agree to be his "odalisque" in return for accompanying him on the mission to rescue her sister, and at one point is said to be off getting laid elsewhere (I can't tell if he really was, or this was misinformation), and by the end has killed as many people on his rescue mission as the Bad Guy did. Possibly more people, since he burnt down a harem.

So in the end (...ow) good and evil in this book are largely a matter of Choice of Hole.

I can't say it wasn't entertaining, though.

Full review here: http://themummyreads.blogspot.ca/2014...

[Smitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book with an unusual hero & heroine set in an exotic location. Fun and enjoyable.

[Freya Salazar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught me off guard. I didn't expect it to be so good. But it is, most enjoyable to read.

[Carol Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most sexy book I have ever read! Hot romance fans will absolutely adore this desert tale of sex and passion.

Prim Alexandra and rugged adventurer Ryder Culhane have every kind of sex you can possibly imagine. They are out to recover a pair of priceless bracelets that Alexandra's archaeologist father dug up long ago. Unfortunately, Alexandra's spoiled and sexy little sister Allegra has fallen completely under the spell of evil foreign collector Dzmura -- and it looks like he has the bracelets! Journeying to Persia to confront him, Alexandra is separated from her rugged Ryder and falls into the clutches of the evil Dzmura herself. But when her intense training in the arts of pleasure turns Alexandra into a willing slave herself, can even Ryder save her in time?

Only three words can truly describe this sexy romance.

Hot, hot, hot!

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has been sitting on my shelf forever and I finally decided to pick it up and give it a try. I enjoyed the story and it kept my attention. I enjoyed the journey by Orient Express and eluding the followers and the search for clues about the bracelets. I think this book would have been much more enjoyable without the sex scenes. They were ridiculous, and overburdened with words like transmogrified, termagant, profligate. I also found that I occasionally had a hard time following whose thoughts and feelings she was describing because they flipped back and forth. I think Thea Devine's writing would be better served with more attention to how the erotic scenes fit within the whole of her story.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very much enjoy Thea Devine's books. Her writing expects the reader to think and observe. Intricate stories with surprising twists yet still romantic. In this book, the two daughters of a archeologist, Sir Peregrine, lose first their mother and a short time later, their father. There are mysteries here and Alexandra, the older, had his confidence but many questions were left unanswered at his death. Allegra, the younger sister, disappears in the company of a neighbor, Dzmura, who is involved with Sir Peregrine's research in the middle East. Alexandra accompanies her father's business associate to find her sister, pursuing them into a world where anyone could be your enemy.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alexandra's father dies, leaving two bracelets he excavated behind and a big mystery. Culhane shows up, asking about Alex's father's investigations. They journey to the Middle East after Alex's sister Allegra disappears with a mysterious neighbor. Alex makes a deal with Culhane - she'll be his sex slave if he takes her with him. As they journey across the continent she succumbs to his sexual allure.

[Lauri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I thought when I bought this, but the book wasn't it. It made little sense, and what did weren't very good.